My Coliseum Connection family - we’re literally begging for help.”īurton asked the board what the agency would do to “make sure our neighbors are made whole again and, two, make sure this never happens again. “It’s just really unfortunate what happened this week. “A lot of mental breakdowns are happening,” said tenant Tommie Wheeler. The meeting paused at one point for an extended moment of silence. Several residents mentioned the reported incident earlier in the week in which a neighbor returned to his unit in the complex and took his own life. We are just ordinary people working and trying to make a living and pay our taxes.” “People cannot get their kids to school or to work, and the amount of emotional and mental effort needed for my fellow neighbors to advocate for themselves - we are not dedicated, fully trained civil rights or community grassroots organizers. “People are not having their needs met,” tenant Hezekiah Burton told the board. But many others in the complex, which includes a mix of 50% lower-income and 50% market-rate units, remain in hotels amid sometimes dismal conditions.Įast Bay BART board member Lateefah Simon, who has been in frequent touch with the displaced residents, described some hotel accommodations as “laden with vermin and crime.” Braggs said families with three or more children are staying in single-room units with just one sink for dishwashing and personal care. Some residents have exercised an option to get out of their Coliseum Connections leases. The city of Oakland stepped in to pick up the tab after Johnson announced abruptly in early February his firm could no longer afford to pay.
UrbanCore initially paid the hotel bills for displaced residents after the New Year’s flood. Most of the residents who addressed the board Thursday blamed UrbanCore’s Johnson for leaving them to fend for themselves. “What you guys have done, we appreciate it, but it’s not enough,” Braggs said.
COLISEUM BART STATION FREE
In an email responding to KQED questions Thursday, he said the new target date is July 1.īraggs acknowledged that BART has given the displaced residents free Clipper cards, but said much more is needed, with residents facing at least two more months before they can get back into their units and some semblance of the daily routines that have been taken away from them. The delay was mostly due, he said, to the difficulty in purchasing electrical equipment to replace gear damaged during the flood. Michael Johnson, CEO of the property’s developer and owner, UrbanCore Development, earlier estimated residents would be able to move back in by April 1. Residents are still awaiting the completion of extensive work and repairs needed after New Year’s weekend storms flooded streets adjacent to BART’s Coliseum station and inundated the development’s parking garage.
We’re done telling you guys what we don’t have - you have that.” We need you to do something,” resident Jasmine Braggs told the board. Tenants from the 110-unit Coliseum Connections development confronted the board on Thursday about the conditions they’re facing - including vermin-infested temporary hotel accommodations, disrupted family and work life, and ongoing stress and mental health challenges - after a resident at the complex reportedly took his own life earlier this week.
Scores of residents forced over New Year’s weekend to evacuate a flood-damaged East Oakland apartment complex built on BART property are still months away from being able to return home and are appealing to the agency’s elected board for help.
0 kommentar(er)
